So like a good dutiful citizen, I emailed my local MP, James Arbuthnot, about Equal Marriage. I got the following reply:

What utterly depresses me is the sheer arrogance – or maybe political calculation – that he doesn’t need to tell his constituents how he’ll be voting.

It just makes me cross he can’t say: Yes, No or Yet to have decided. Those would be adequate. But saying ‘well, check later about how I’ll be voting’ is just weak.

PS It’s not too late to email your MP – go to today: http://www.c4em.org.uk/

You can view all the members of the Working Group here

Overall, I’m quite happy with the membership – although as Jennie Rigg notes too male & pale – but would be nice to see some who aren’t elected to a Parliament there too.

It’ll be interesting to see what is produced – hopefully also fully costed too a la 2010 – and how they will tackle the ‘Coalition’ question (What bits will we push for, what are lower priorities &c).

So what should we learn from the US election?

1) Do not dispute the maths
Nate Silver came under a lot of criticism because basically his numbers didn’t fit the media narrative, but as we ‘be seen tonight, he has been vindicated. He has made statistics sexy. Long may it continue.

538 Prediction versus the reality

2) You still win elections by getting your vote out
Pretty self-explanatory. The Obama campaign pushed the message to its supporters to vote early so they were free on election day. It worked. The on the ground operation delivered. In the UK, apart from postal ballots, we don’t have that option for in person early voting, but i think this will now set a precedent for parties to urge supporters to vote at 7am, then get out and campaign.

3) Lots of people donating small amounts of money defeated a few people donated large amounts of money
This, especially considering the Citizens United ruling, is remarkable. But it is what Obama has always been good at. Just from proper targeting you can extract more money, by maybe counter-intuitively, asking for less. Asking students for £5 instead of £50 is definitely a better plan.

4) Clear messaging and highlighting the path to victory clearly is the way to motivate your activists
Otherwise known as ‘Commander’s Intent’ – watch this for a really clear example of it – voting Obama, volunteering for Obama, giving every last iota for Obama will lead to more energy independence, a new economy, whatever fires up your activists. This is definitely a lesson for us Brits. Motivating our activists is something we sorely lack in our political system.

And on that, after watching all the results, I’m off to rest.

In a couple of years, we’re going to be fighting one of the toughest elections ever. Defending our record in the Coalition and so on. We’ll need a campaign that is as smooth as a baby’s bottom.

Our recent Political Election Broadcasts are pretty good. But I feel in 2015, we should use Noah & the Whale’s song Five Years Time to tell how we want to shape Britain in the next 5 years.

Just an idea.

This week, I have been attending NUS’ National Conference in Sheffield, on Liberal Youth’s behalf. There is, as I’m sure you’ll be aware, a lot of bad blood between the Liberal Democrats and the NUS. After some MPs breaking that pledge, strangely enough the NUS weren’t too happy with us. It has, however, given people who need to get elected an easy target to hit. They had even invited Nick Clegg to speak; I can’t imagine the NUS really wanted him to speak – it was more advantageous to them for Nick to decline; but I believe Nick should have called their bluff and answered the obvious questions NUS have for him.

Of course, some delegates would have been a bit excited in the presence of the Deputy Prime Minister – and he did get booed at the mention of his name & we as a whole got called “out and out liars”, but in 2015 we have quite a few University seats to defend. We need to start our narrative for students now.

The Conference floor is an interesting place. I must admit I had a rather dim opinion of NUS – actually, for the most part, I still do – it’s unrepresentative of students, full of cliques & self-obsessed – but from what I did see there are a few glimmers of hope. Liam Burns is a genuinely lovely guy (when not seeking reelection) and he does understand that NUS needs to open more to other political parties. But back to the Conference floor: it does look and feel like a Labour conference – you hear praise for trade unions & speeches started with ‘Comrades’. I was half-expecting there to be a rendition of ‘the Red Flag’.

I spoke at two fringe events – one on NUS’ Come Clean campaign & at the launch of the Democrats & Reformists Network, which was focussed on Financial Education. I did fear I would be booed at the first event. However, the delegates there I think were receptive to our message – show us some respect, and we’ll show you more back. Liberal Youth and the NUS can and should work together – we do not agree on everything, but where we do, we can get a better deal for students.

The second event was far more informal; a good discussion on the implementation of Financial Education. Should it be compulsory? Where should it fit in? How should it be delivered? A whole host of ideas were discussed – it seemed the general consensus seemed to be about integrating it into secondary school PSHE lessons, straight from Year 7, as well as introducing a voucher system at Colleges and Universities for those who need financial assistance.

All in all, it has been an eye-opening experience. But if there is one thing I would change, it would be to have more Liberal Youth people there. That’s why I think we should actively encourage our branches to put people up to be NUS delegates.

Originally published on the Libertine

Firstly, I want to talk about what I have achieved over the last year working on the Liberal Youth Executive.

As England Convenor, I’ve revived Liberal Youth England (LYE) by writing its constitution from scratch. It’s not perfect, but it was a starting point for LYE and I’m glad people like Matt J. McLaren are willing to give their input on how to improve it further. I also worked with regional chairs to establish them in their new roles and act as a link between branches and the executive.

In November, I was co-opted as Events Officer. It is one of the most intense jobs I’ve ever had and has been so rewarding as well. Working alongside Conference Committee, we had one of the best Federal Conferences in memory with an absolutely packed fringe event – a Q&A on Youth Unemployment with Vince Cable.

I also organised Liberal Youth Conference, which was hosted by Leeds University. It was stage to one of the biggest rewrites of Liberal Youth’s constitution and a wide range of policy discussions on Education, on Drugs & on Equal Marriage.

And as I type, plans for Activate, our training and handover weekend, are in the process of becoming reality, with some very exciting training planned.

But why do I want to be Vice Chair? What do I want to achieve? Where do I want Liberal Youth to be this time next year?

I believe I have the values and skills to perform the role of Vice Chair, effectively Chief Problem Solver. I know and understand how Liberal Youth operates, but also what can be improved. For example, I believe Liberal Youth would benefit from moving our elections to late November or early December to be more in line with the Federal Party. This also would mean that our conferences, which would work best being in November and in July, act as a run up to Federal Conference.

Over the last year, the message I have received from former Liberal Youth members is that we need to get back to making policy. Liberal Youth can and should be the radical voice of the party.

But what about our branches on the ground? I want to make sure that every active branch has a liberalyouth.org email address. I want to communicate with our members. That’s why I believe we must utilise the Libertine to tell our members what their officers have been up to. I also believe we should send  a monthly email including these reports, as well as posting emails sent out by Liberal Youth on its website.

You can like my campaign page, as well as read more about my ideas for Liberal Youth on Facebook and post your support on Twitter using #hm4vc

I think this whole situation stinks of the party leadership failing to listen to the grassroots before something is said. Maybe they should read twitter a bit more keenly.

I am surprised that no one in Lynne Featherstone’s or Nick Clegg’s Office realises what a massive cock up this was going to become. Regardless of whether the suggestions are actually sensible, the headline was always going to piss Lib Dems off.

Fundamentally, it seems those residing in Clegg’s Whitehall office don’t ‘get’ what might be inferred from the Government saying we need more data for surveillance and what that might be interpreted as by the grassroots.

However, in their defence, it wasn’t even a fully formed policy, but you do have to wonder why Theresa May is in the Sun and talking about what the Government wants to do. But it’s not been agreed to so how can the Government decided it wanted to do this? And so it goes on.

On Sunday, we didn’t have a Liberal Democrat MP, like Julian Huppert or Tom Brake, pounding the pro-liberty drum… we had David Davis. Why? This is something our party should be jumping on.

It has also swamped coverage of the Youth Contract. That really awesome thing we did to help young people is pretty much being ignored because we didn’t act quickly enough.

The worst thing is this is not the first time this sort of thing has happened: the EU ‘veto’ last November is a classic example. Clegg on the Friday morning: ‘seems alright, don’t it?’; on Sunday: ‘I CAN NOT BELIEVE CAMERON DID THIS.’* We have to get a grip on how the leadership talks to the rest of the party.

*may be slightly exaggerated

Nick needs to talk more directly with members – that’s why after the Queen’s Speech, he should do a Q&A like Danny did with the Budget.

More talking to key local party members about what the Government is doing and what Liberal Democrats are pushing for.

And when a leak comes through and we don’t like it, a) read the full story quickly b) come down on it like a tonne of bricks.

It is not hard.

Ayes:
Martin Horwood
Julian Huppert
John Leech
John Pugh
Andrew George
Adrian Sanders
Greg Mulholland

Noes:
Danny Alexander
Norman Baker
Alan Beith
Gordon Birtwistle
Tom Brake
Paul Burstow
Lorely Burt
Vince Cable
Menzies Campbel
Alistair Carmichael
Nick Clegg
Mike Crockart
Ed Davey
Tim Farron
Lynne Featherstone
Don Foster
Stephen Gilbert
Duncan Hames
Nick Harvey
David Heath
John Hemming
Simon Hughes
Chris Huhne
David Laws
Stephen Lloyd
Michael Moore
Tessa Munt
Bob Russell
Andrew Stunnell
Ian Swales
Jo Swinson
Sarah Teather
John Thurso
Steve Webb
Mark Williams
Stephen Williams
Roger Williams
Jenny Willott

The Main motion:

Ayes:
Andrew George
Martin Horwood
Julian Huppert
Greg Mulholland
John Pugh
Adrian Sanders

Noes:
Danny Alexander
Norman Baker
Alan Beith
Gordon Birtwistle
Tom Brake
Paul Burstow
Lorely Burt
Vince Cable
Menzies Campbel
Alistair Carmichael
Mike Crockart
Ed Davey
Tim Farron
Lynne Featherstone
Don Foster
Stephen Gilbert
Duncan Hames
Nick Harvey
David Heath
John Hemming
Simon Hughes
Chris Huhne
David Laws
John Leech
Stephen Lloyd
Michael Moore
Bob Russell
Andrew Stunnell
Ian Swales
Jo Swinson
Sarah Teather
John Thurso
Steve Webb
Mark Williams
Stephen Williams
Roger Williams
Jenny Willott

Source: Hansard

The most interesting aspect is John Leech supporting the rebel Lib Dem amendment, then voting against the motion as a whole.

I don’t have much time for what Liberal Left seeks to do. It goes completely in the face of the pluralistic principles of Liberal Democrats. It’s almost as if they don’t want to see Liberal Democrat policies being written onto the statue book. For that reason, I didn’t attend their launch – plus I needed food. From what I heard, they were quite a few people trolling them and Lembit just sat there reading his new book, The Alternative View. I was half tempted to sit there and reading the Orange Book.

Liberal Reform, however, has been construed as the rising of the ‘right wing’ Orange Booker wing of the party. A lot of untruths have been going round about their reception, like it being funded by BUPA or some such nonsense. As one MP said to me, he was glad something like this had been set up.

But it begs the question: are factions a good thing? They certainly help generate policy from different areas rather than just FPC, but also make conferences a bit more interesting with showdowns on the Conference floor. However, do we want to have a party in the same state as Thatcherite vs. Wets or Blairites vs. Brownites. I don’t think, from the feeling at Conference, it will happen that way anyway. For example, most people are members of Social Liberal Forum (because it was free) and I’m also a member of Liberal Reform.

The true test of whether the party is going to split into differing factions will be at Autumn Conference in Brighton. There we shall see what happens in that sunny seaside town in September…

But after last weekend’s events, have we squandered another opportunity to show our liberal muscles? The leadership failed on strategy on the motion. In my opinion, they would have been better to let the Drop the Bill motion be chosen. Then to make matters worse, they made it personal and tried to play on the support for Shirley at Sheffield come back at NewcastleGateshead. It was cynical. And it doesn’t help that Shirley saw the motion 15 minutes before it was published. Caron Lindsay covers it very well in more depth here.

But what did the motion achieve? Has it, as Cllr Matthew Hulbert has suggested, give cover for peers to vote down the NHS Bill later this week, or as one member of party staff said to me it gives peers political cover to squeeze more concessions out of the Tories? Well, the amendment, passing 317-270, took out lines 32 & 33, removing the explicit instruction for peers to support the Bill’s third reading (motions to conference can’t mandate how parliamentarians vote).

In my personal opinion, I hope to see large rebellion in the House of Lords by Lib Dem peers – the bill itself is large, incomprehensible & has lost professional support. Politically, it makes no sense to keep it unless you’re being too proud to see that it is too toxic.

However, I don’t think the emergency motion passed at Conference calls for peers to vote in any particular way – more to let them have a free vote on the bill.